IF YOU WERE A RALLY SELECTOR…..
author: Leon Botha
IF YOU WERE A RALLY SELECTOR…..
Who will it be?
You need to use a bit of imagination, that is if you have any, to imagine a 100kg person tiptoeing to the edge of the water and then like a ballet soprano, or what do you call those guys who wear their lunchtime bananas under their winter pajamas, while they throw around small little women with the greatest legs on a stage, sometimes grabbing where a decent guy like me will never grab – anyway like one of them tiptoeing to the water to test it.
It will probably be more appropriate to think about a fool rushing into a croc-infested river for his afternoon swim, but lets go! What must be said, needs to be said.
Checking the route, spectating, advising, talking, sending away sms messages, answering phone calls of those who did not pay for the sms service, and in general running up and down between Final Control-marshals and the car, to do my job, I did have time to talk to some of my old friends who also hung around at stage ends to get their team times, and share a joke or two.
One of the funniest things that were said this weekend came from my friend Bob Kernohan who reports on Motoring for The Herald – this was just after SS11 when Serge Damseaux creamed, literary creamed and “cherried” the opposition to place the rally safely in the bag. Bob dryly remarked while we speculated about Serge’s time – “he has a wonderful future behind him!” This was very funny at that moment, then, I thought about it…
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Serge Damseaux and Robert Paisley - making it look easy.
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Serge sure as hell has a great future behind him, but what next for South African rallying? No, of course it will carry on, there will in all probability be a tomorrow, there will be new champions, a new name will come up – rally fans will of course forget about Serge, as they did about van der Merwe, Hettema and von Bergen. The older ones sort of remember Louis Cloete, the Porter brothers, Elbie Odendaal, Geoff Mortimer and a few others – but where is our next real hero hiding? Is he currently playing good golf or tennis, maybe he is a cyclist like Hettema used to be before he became South Africa Rally Champion as well.
One thing is for sure, he is not sitting behind the steering wheel of a rally car, or am I mistaken?
There can be two reasons why Serge is actually making fools of the other top drivers at the moment – the Volkswagens are simply no match for the Toyota – or he stepped over a new threshold and is now miles ahead of the rest. He may have moved into a bracket where fools fear to tread! And to crown it all he makes it look so bloody easy! The scary thing about this is that at his age he is not supposed to improve – well at least not alone!
Gemmel shows signs of genius behind the steering of the Mitsubishi, and he also seems to be able to pace himself perfectly, doing just what is required to win the class – and at the same time realising that he has to do too much, to try and get to the overall winning position. He will probably be able to stay up with Serge, but the pressure and risks will simply become too high.
Habig and Kuun, the one spectacular, and at times brilliant, the other brilliant, and at times very fast. I am not sure how to say this – if they are so good why does it take them so long to get their cars sorted out, if the cars are not so good, why do they manage to post brilliant times sometimes? Why do they seem to be driving at 132.5% while Serge seems to be on a Sunday cruise still managing to set times both of the other two can mostly dream about?
Serge said on Friday evening that he was going to demoralise Kuun in the first stage on Saturday morning and then protect his lead.
“I’m the greatest, rev like a master, klap like a bearing?”
No he does not even get close to bragging, or close to having a big head or inflated ego – he simply states what his strategy is going to be, because he knows exactly how quick the opposition is.
Special Stage 11 – early Saturday morning, we are all waiting for the first car, which of course will be Serge as he was leading Enzo by 1 second after day one. Funny how it was 1 second after day one on the Sasol as well?
Both Damseaux and Kuun took a minute lateness on Friday evening to get the other to open the road on Saturday – and they managed to get 10 seconds penalty each for their trouble, forgetting that the final positions on day one gets worked out without the penalty. It would have been poetic justice if Gemmel won the rally by 5 seconds?
Anyway, if you have ever been standing around waiting for a rally car to get through a stage, you will know what it sounds like when morning stillness is broken by the scream of four pistons going crazy inside tunnels where they are burned by a stupid plug igniting 102plus octane petrol every time they try and get out of there. It sound great – actually the last such impressive sound I heard was when I could still do what I was supposed to do on earth, properly, a few years ago!
Serge looked up at me as he came out of the stage and gave me one of those rare smiles when he knew he did well, really well. His time through the stage was 20m34s. I kept my trap shut and waited eagerly on the arrival of the BP Golf driven by Kuun. It sounded right, it looked great as it blitzed past the Flying Finish – then the time came 21m22 – 48 seconds slower than Serge – and both Enzo and Guy shook their heads!
All the wise men standing around looked at each other and someone said: “Check Damseaux time – it is bloody impossible!” We crowded around the marshal and Frans Boshoff who is supposed to be great with this sort of thing calculated the difference between Car No 1’s start and finish time - and looked up, like one of those “scientists” in a soap advertisement confirming the outcome!
Damseaux did indeed take 48 seconds from a hard trying Kuun – as he said he would!
Now you tell me – what the hell are we going to do? Tell me who will be a worthy successor, or were do you see the potential that will put a stop to this mockery?
A FULL REPORT AND STAGE ANALYSIS ON THE VW RALLY 2005 WILL BE PUBLISHED LATER TODAY - DON'T MISS IT!
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